Ramirez-Diaz Ivonne, Lobato Sagrario, Perez-Gonzalez Andrea, Morales Alejandra and Rubio Karla
Environmental Epigenetics and Obesity
Abstract
In recent years, increasing interest on the effects of dietary components onepigenetic processes and, consequently, on the regulation of gene expression andmetabolic responses has led clinical efforts worldwide to approach obesity. Wheninadequate, food consumption leads to chronic and non-communicable diseases(CNCD) including obesity. Among the dynamic changes in cellular responses bynutritional interventions, epigenetic control represents a master regulator underly-ing both positive and negative effects of diet on body mass, including DNA methyla-tion, histone post-translational modifications and microRNA expression signatures.Indeed, mechanistical studies of the relationship between environment, diet anddifferential epigenetic landscapes are gaining attention on functional pathwaysinvolved in cell growth, DNA-repair, lipogenesis, senescence, inflammation, tumorsuppression, apoptosis and oncogenesis. Being the dynamic interplay between epi-genetics and obesity so complex, moreover considering a detrimental environmentcontext, this chapter will discuss the state-of-the-art evidence showing the pollutionimpact on the different epigenetic mechanisms regulating an obese phenotype, andhow these molecular events determine the organic interplay upon metabolic altera-tions, and finally we will introduce recent epidrugs and biocompounds of thera-peutic interests due to their potential to modulate and even revert obesity-inducingepigenetic mechanisms.
